Funny how yesterday I thought I was too good for her. Now I realize she’s too good for me.
The realization fills me with sadness and regret.
I’m about to turn away, but she suddenly stills. The joy bleeds from her face as she lifts a Santa-head ornament from the tree. Her fingertip gently traces the features. Longing fills her eyes, and her chin trembles. She flips over the price tag, and her face pales. Her eyes flood with tears and she carefully puts it back.
What just happened?
She turns and finds me already in her path. The devastation in her eyes nearly brings me to my knees, and the urge to fix this for her is overwhelming.
“What just happened?” I ask quietly, my throat tight. But I already know. It’s out of her budget. Still, why does she want it so badly?
She blinks up at me in surprise. “What?”
I don’t want to embarrass her, so I need to tread carefully. I gently turn her toward the tree and lift the Santa ornament from the branch. “You looked at this one longer than the others. What makes it special?”
She draws in a deep breath, her shoulders brushing my chest. I want to rest a hand on her hip, to let her know I’m here, but it feels too intimate—more than the “show” we’ve put on for my siblings. Still, her sadness leaves me empty and helpless. Empty I know; helpless isn’t familiar. And I hate it.
“Finley,” I whisper in her ear. “Help me understand.”
She shivers. I can’t help myself—I don’t want her sad and cold. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her back against me to share my warmth.
“My mom…” Her voice is so faint I almost miss it.
“Did she like Santas?” I prod gently when she doesn’t continue. I need to know what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. I’ve never taken an interest in other women like this, but it must be because we’re friends, not lovers. Friends care about each other’s feelings.
She leans into me, and I tighten my hold. Having her against me feels too natural. Too right. But I shove down my feelings and concentrate on hers.
“Yeah,” she finally says, and even though I can’t see her face, I hear the sad smile in her voice. “But there was one she loved the most. Her grandmother gave it to her when she was a kid. She adored her grandmother, so it was really special to her. She wrapped it in tissue paper every year and placed it in a special box. She kept it in her dresser, not with the other ornaments.”
“Do you have it on the tree in your apartment?”
She turns and looks up at me. “What makes you think I have a tree in my apartment?”
Somehow, I know she’s deflecting, which tells me—along with the way she was looking at this one—that it’s gone.
An ache twists in my chest. Finley’s already lost so much. It kills me that she lost that ornament. It feels unbearable.
“It looked almost exactly like this one,” she whispers, her voice cracking.
I don’t care how much it costs; I’m not leaving without it. I’ll take out a second mortgage on my condo if I have to.
My chest feels like a hundred-pound anvil is pressing on it. “What happened to your mother’s ornament, Finley?”
She draws a shaky breath. “One of my crappy roommates.” Then she slips out of my arm and hurries from the tent.
I turn to watch her leave, torn between chasing her and taking the time to buy the ornament. Tyler’s standing a few feet away, watching me with a dark look that says he thinks I screwed this up.
I turn back to the ornament and lift the price tag, my eyes nearly popping out. No wonder she got upset. The price is astronomical.
I reach over to take it off the tree, but then stop. If I just buy it and give it to her, she’ll think I did it out of pity.
Isn’t it?
The ache in my chest throbs, stealing my breath. It’s killing me she lost something so precious, but it isn’t pity that makes me want to buy it. Finley’s always so full of life—I can’t stand seeing her so broken.
Is that pity?
Or me being selfish? Only desperate to fix her sadness so my afternoon isn’t ruined?
